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"In this world, there's this... thing that no one's ever seen. This thing, it's very kind and gentle, and if anyone could actually see it, there'd be a whole bunch of people wanting to have it. Maybe that's why the world keeps it hidden from everyone; if it's hard to get, that makes it even more special. Yeah, but one day, someone will find it... and whoever does, they'll be the one who was supposed to find it. Because that's the way it's meant to be."

As the new school year starts, Ryuuji finds himself in the same class as his friend Yuusaku Kitamura, and his crush Minori Kushieda (whom he is too bashful to approach). His class also includes Minori's best friend: Taiga Aisaka (a.k.a. the "Palmtop Tiger"), the infamous pint-sized terror of the school with a fuse even shorter than her stature.

After an unfortunate first encounter that ends with Taiga KO-ing him, Ryuuji finds out at the end of the school day that Taiga has put a love letter to Kitamura (whom she has a crush on but is too bashful to approach) in his bag by accident. This leads to Taiga breaking into his house that night to retrieve the letter and/or kill him, only to discover that she forgot to put the letter in the envelope and has inadvertently outed her crush on Kitamura to Ryuuji.

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After much ado and a few sword-blows, Ryuuji and Taiga strike a tenuous deal: to use their positions as The Best Friends to help each other bag their respective crushes. Hilarity Ensues.

Toradora! (とらドラ!) is a 2006-2009 light novel series written by Yuyuko Takemiya and illustrated by Yasu, spanning 10 volumes. It was later given an ongoing 2008 manga series illustrated by Zekkyou (both the manga and light novels are licensed in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment) and a 25-episode anime adaptation by JC Staff in 2009 (plus an OVA episode created in 2011 for the Japanese Blu-ray release of the series).

Tropes in Toradora! include:

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A-F

A-Cup Angst: Taiga suffers from this during the pool episode. Ryuuji responds by making her some cups to enhance her bust. Which then causes problems later at the pool.

Airplane of Love: Inverted. When Ryuuji gives his "Tiger and Dragon" speech there are twin contrails in the sky, symbolizing his connection to Taiga. At the end of the series, when Ryuuji stands outside alone, the sky is empty, but he recalls the contrails as he vows to return to Taiga's side some day.

Love is hiding right under your nose, and sometimes you can only recognize it by letting go of your old feelings and realizing that you've changed.

Children need parents who take an active interest in their lives, and you can't just be there for your kid only when it's convenient.

Don't rely on initial impressions, as these, most often than not, hide the exact opposite of what's expected.

Don't put your love interest in a pedestal, as you're making them unreachable to your own grasp by doing so.

Don't pressure your friend to accept something they don't want, just because it's what you wish you had for yourself. This is what Ryuuji learns as a result of trying to get Taiga to reconcile with her dad.

Pretending to be someone you're not might make you popular, but you won't have any real friends unless you reveal yourself to them warts and all. Ami puts on her initial Bitch in Sheep's Clothing personality because she can manipulate people by pretending to be innocent and cute, but also because she doesn't think anyone would accept the real her. She decides to give being more honest a try after observing the fact that Taiga has friends even though she has such an abrasive personality, which is the start of her personal growth.

Anguished Declaration of Love: The penultimate scene of Episode 8 looks like this. It's probable that this is where Taiga began to like Ryuuji, when she yelled at everyone for not saving him, and screamed, while crying, that he belonged to her. Of course, she tries to play it off as looking after her "dog", but the overtones are still there.

The end of the Christmas episode. It's so anguished that it counts as a Tear Jerker.

Once Ami groks the situation (which does take several episodes/books), she becomes like a ninja sniper. She especially likes to catch Ryuuji by the vending machines with these. Ryuuji gets her back (without realizing it) by calling her a "kid" after Minori and Yuri praised her for her maturity. This seems to be what convinces her to stay in school, and she later admits that all she wants in life is someone who can pierce her armor.

Minori delivers one in Episode 23 which leads to the final Drama Bomb of the series.

The foot race during the School Festival. For once Ryuuji's face looks as scary as people say it is.

When the fight between Taiga and Sumire begins, their movements are portrayed in a way to make the action more brutal. The color tone becomes a little drab, the characters go slightly off-model and the frame rate is rather low, which gives their strikes more impact, but make the movement still seem fluid.

And finally, when Minori confronts Taiga about denying her feelings for Ryuuji. Both girls are on the verge of a breakdown, and the art reflects their emotional torment.

Artificial Riverbank: Taiga once collapses on one in exhaustion, only to get up and try to learn how to ride a bike after a chance meeting with Yuusaku. Later, Ami and Ryuuji visit it while performing community service (more so in the novel).

Badass Adorable: Taiga. She floors Ryuuji with a single punch in their first encounter, she can handle a bokken, and she does well (diminutive stature notwithstanding) in a brawl with Sumire (and is completely unrepentant after being suspended from school for it). The Palmtop Tiger demands your respect.

Sudohbucks Coffee is Starbucks Coffee. Even Ryuuji lampshades "How come this place has yet to be sued?" There's also Jonny's (Denny's), and knockoffs of Pocari Sweat and Asahi beer.

Taiga buys a donut from a shady van called "Krispy Kreamy".

Oddly enough, one scene of the anime contains a store named Kmart in the background. This was likely a failed attempt at being generic.

Episode 12 has a bottle of "Nourishment Water" show up, which is a knockoff of Vitamin Water, lowercase letters and all.

Book-Ends: In the anime, Taiga and Ryuuji meet through a locker. Guess what happens right before they reunite. There are (at least) three more: The birds on the telephone wire, the twin contrails in the sky and - possibly stretching it a bit - Taiga and Ryuuji's forced smiles.

Briar Patching: Minori, of all people, pulls this off by pretending she is scared senseless by all things Horror, when in fact she loves horror stories and intentionally invites others to try scaring her in this manner.

Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Minori. Her oddness certainly doesn't seem to stop her from being captain of the softball team and having a relatively normal school- and social life, with most characters seeming to take her slight eccentricity in good stride.

Cat Fight: Subverted. The fight between Taiga and Sumire is not sexy, it is no-holds-barred and brutal.

Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Hilariously invoked by Minori after being commanded by Taiga to grab Ryuuji while the two are at a sidewalk intersection. Taiga then throws her bookbag at Ryuuji's face, and sprints past them before the lights turn red.

Central Theme: The way that love hides in plain sight, eluding your efforts to find it until you realize it was right under your nose the whole time.

Character Development: Virtually everybody in the cast, although the minor characters don't get much until about halfway through the series.

Crappy Holidays: Which was supposed to be a good Christmas for Taiga and Ryuuji ended badly for both of them. After surprising a sad and lonely Taiga with a giant teddy bear being Santa Claus, both Taiga and Ryuuji went happy. Then Ryuuji leaves to talk Minori to declare his feelings for her. After he leaved, Taiga realized she loved Ryuuji all the time and runs crying and screaming his name just to find he already left. And Ryuuji? He was rejected by Minori before he said a word, getting sat in the middle of the night until dawn (IN WINTER) and being hospitalized for the rest of the year.

Taiga initially gets upset whenever other girls get too friendly or close to Yuusaku, particularly Ami and later Kanou. Later she does this towards Ryuuji as well.

Kihara later on. While she hints at liking Kitamura early on, she doesn't get to spend much time with him until after he becomes the Student Council President about halfway through the series. But by that point, Noto, one of Kitamura's friends, actively tries to get Taiga and Kitamura together, which ironically he does a better job at than Ryuuji did. The two minor characters culminate in a heated argument during the ski trip about this, which causes Kihara to start crying, and creating a very sour mood amongst the group later that evening.

Cloudcuckoolander: Minori, whose behavior is notably strange even amongst this band of oddballs. Her antics have been noted to generally steal scenes.

Color Failure: Taiga gets a few of these moments in the anime, most notably when Ami lied to her about how Kitamura hated her for slapping the former out of nowhere, and again come the pool season.

Contrived Coincidence: Minori walks past by Taiga's apartment, right after Taiga ran out crying, calling for Ryuuji. Justified. According to the novel Minori went to Taiga's apartment to confront her about her feelings toward Ryuuji and was standing on the street hesitating to enter. Which makes it much less of coincidence. In addition, the preceding scene featured Minori listening to a message on her voice mail, which was made at the beginning of the episode. The message consisted of Ryuuji inviting her to the Christmas party, with Taiga's shouting for Ryuuji's attention being heard very clearly in the background. This could have prompted Minori to head to Taiga's house to find out the latter's feelings.

Crash-Into Hello: Taiga & Ryuuji in the first episode. This is how they find each other in the Epilogue of the novel.

Crazy-Prepared: Not so much applicable in the anime as it is in the original novel, but Ryuuji, being the Neat Freak he is, never leaves home without a host of various portable cleaning supplies for whatever random job may creep up. The total list of these supplies would take up far too much space here.

Cry Cute: Taiga (as is the norm for roles by her voice actress) mostly, but so did Minori, Yasuko, and (in the light novel) Ami.

Taiga, especially around Kitamura, when she is reduced to a quivering wreck. Ami fakes being one; it's all part of her manipulative bitchiness.

Taiga is such a klutz, she falls from a bike she's merely pushing around!

Daddy Didn't Show: Set-up more or less from the moment Taiga's father appears. Or at least when other characters begin reacting to his arrival.

Date Crêpe: During the festival arc, Taiga is eating a crepe and Yuusaku takes a bite. The possibility for an Indirect Kiss so overwhelms her that she stuffs the whole thing down Ryuuji's throat.

Deconstruction: Many of the characters are deconstructions of typical anime characters. Most notably, Taiga is a real world version of childish tsundere types like Shana and Louise.

Delinquents: Subverted by Ryuuji: he's one of the most patient and nicest guys you'll run into, but his eyes are permanently fixed into a death glare (which he apparently inherited from his late Yakuza father), causing people (even adults!) to be deathly afraid of him.

Disappeared Dad: Ryuuji's father is missing from the start of the series, possibly dead. At the end of the series his mother admits they were never married and he ran off with another woman while she was pregnant.

"Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Yui Horie, the voice of Minori, sings the first ending theme and the second opening theme. She's joined by the voice actresses for Taiga and Ami for the first opening and second ending.

Door Stopper: The book series runs to ten volumes, plus three more volumes of side stories (appropriately titled Toradora Spin-off!). Even at 200 pages each, that's still a RomCom twice as long as The Lord of the Rings.

Drama Bomb: Impacts around half-way through, around the same time the OP/ED change.

Dramatic Irony: The main reason neither Minori nor Kitamura reciprocate Ryuuji and Taiga's affections respectively is because they see how Taiga behaves around Ryuuji and vice-versa. As such, Taiga and Ryuuji are both foils to each others intentions even though their agreement was to achieve the exact contrary. Their mere friendship is detrimental to their goals, and the longer it went, the worse it got. It's fair to point out that they did notice this and tried to put some distance between themselves a couple of times, but it never quite worked out for them.

Dramatic Wind: When Minori calls both Ryuuji and Taiga to have a talk about their relationship in Episode 2.

In Episode 7, when Minori is about to declare that Ami and Taiga will settle their differences through sports. Lampshaded with a wide shot showing that Minori's the only one in the classroom affected by the wind.

Dysfunction Junction: A cornerstone of the show's drama. Plus, at least the anime's art style makes it so that more often than not, the eyes of the cast look somewhat disturbing with just a tint of insanity.

Comparatively mild in the series proper, although Taiga's appearance in the anime's opening makes up for that quite a bit—and then of course there's Ryuuji's mother.

Let's not forget Ami in all this, appearing in a Santa girl suit in Haruta's dream, not to mention her bikini for the swimming contest.

A bit for the girls. Kitamura once appears on the scene buck naked, casually holding a towel in front of his naughty bits in a manner that doesn't look like he's even trying to keep himself covered. Taiga is floored almost immediately, while Minorin enthusiastically photographs it with her cellphone camera. The guy proceeds to drop the towel all by himself but Ryuuji dives to catch it and hold it up before anything inappropriate is shown onscreen. Minorin says she sawsomething black, though.

Fashion Model: Ami Kawashima is a fashion model, who is considered in her school to be very tall and beautiful. We see her featured in magazines.

Fast Forward to Reunion: Happens in the Stinger. Taiga and Ryuuji are shown back together again, and he finally tells her that he loves her. Awww.

Filler: The series compresses a ten book series into twenty-five episodes. They get most of the main plot points, but details often get left out. Yet despite this tight framework, the series still contains three filler episodes.

"Your Song" is based upon a paragraph in the second book about how Ryuuji and Taiga first found Minori working in a local diner. Everything after the first five minutes is entirely original to the anime.

"That Moment's Expression" is a completely original story, except for the lunch scene where Minori notices Taiga and Ryuuji's bentos contain the same thing.

"The Palmtop Tiger of Happiness" is loosely adapted from a short story that was included in the third book. Its placement between the School Festival and Sumire arcs makes it something of a Breather Episode.

First Girl Wins: Played with. The girl the viewer meets first is Taiga, but the girl Ryuuji met and liked first was Minori. As you can imagine from the title alone, Taiga wins.

How anvilicious does it get? Well, in the first few minutes of the first episode, we see clips of Taiga and Ryuuji in their respective homes and then a shot of two shoes (which, of course, belong to Yasuko and Ryuuji).

Although this is the most obvious case, it should probably be noted that overall there's a lot more hints about their budding feelings for one another in both the original novel and the manga adaptation than in the anime, especially in the early part of the series.

Near the end of the series, Ryuuji comments on how Taiga can talk normally to Kitamura, which shows that Taiga has more or less gotten over him.

Foregone Conclusion: An extension of the foreshadowing mentioned above. If after the second episode people don't realise that Ryuuji and Taiga are meant to get together, they lack genre savvy. If after the Christmas arc they still don't realise, they should go stare into their fridge until their narrative brains start working again.

Furo Scene: Off-screen during the school trip. The other girls compliment Ami on her swimsuit model body. It's implied that Taiga bathed on her own due to her A-Cup Angst.

There was some commotion made about the cooperation between JC Staff and Takemiya to ensure an accurate adaptation of Volume 10, which came out near the end of the anime's run. However, there are some fairly large and important differences between versions that indicate that JCStaff had a rough outline at most to work with, most notably that in the novel Taiga never transfers, and reunites with Ryuuji and friends come third year, rather than on graduation day. There are some other differences with Filler/Anime original bits of the story that were different or absent in the original novel. For instance:

Minori supported Taiga and Ryuuji running away more emphatically, although she didn't give them her life's savings in the novel.

Minori's affections for Taiga and especially Ami in the anime is almost completely absent in the Light Novel. The anime added several scenes with Minori and Ami that weren't present in the original.

In the novel, Ami has a massiveCry Cute moment when she finds out that Taiga has gone with her mother, tearfully declaring her friendship with everyone and her wish to continue the life she's had with her friends.

The iconic "mou ichido" bedroom kiss is unique to the anime. In the novels, Ryuuji first kisses Taiga on the bridge, leaving her rather shocked. The bedroom scene at his grandparents' runs very differently.

Then there's the 2011 OVA The True Meaning Of Bento, which takes place in an unspecified time to the anime, though there are aspects that show that it doesn't quite belong in the anime timeline. In there, Taiga and Ryuuji are already a couple, but they are still attending school together before their graduation, which is contrary to the anime's ending. As such, it's closer to the book's version rather than the anime's.

Ryuuji uses the more intimate yobisute version of Taiga's name (using no honorific at all) at the end of the second episode, leaving her quite pleased. You know, after she beats him down again. Of course, she never once bothered to use an honorific for him.

Except earlier in Episode 2, when she calls him "Takasu-kun" as she relieves him of his "dog" duties. But that's the only time.

She's more pleased at being put on a First-Name Basis than just the lack of honorific, since he calls her plain "Aisaka" earlier in the same episode.

Ami and Yasuko frequently refer to themselves in third person with the honorific "chan", which is part of what makes them Kawaiiko (see below).

Mostly averted with Yasuko. Even Ryuuji calls her by her first name instead of "okasan".

Haruta calls Ryuuji Taka-chan and variants, which indicates a much closer friendship than what we see onscreen.

Ami towards Ryuuji. Probably justified, since she's introduced later on, and her attitude rubs some of the characters the wrong way early on.

Ryuuji towards Minori. Although Minori did like Ryuuji, by the time they tried to spend time together, Minori noticed that Taiga was beginning to also like Ryuuji, making her use I Want My Beloved to Be Happy on Taiga and Ryuuji and rejecting him when he finally tried to confess to her. Not that doing it was easy on Minori, who cries after finally letting them be together at the end.

Taiga towards Yuusaku. Although she did like him after initially rejecting him, by the time she really got to spend any meaningful amount of time with him, her feelings for Ryuuji were also beginning to blossom, and he was also beginning to like Sumire, the student council president.

Yuusaku towards Taiga and Sumire. Probably the most tragic example in this series, since Taiga initially rejected him, but then grew to like him but always had trouble letting her feelings to him be known properly. After Taiga's rejection, he begins to admire Sumire, who liked him as well but rejected him because she was leaving for America and didn't want him to screw his future up for her.

Note: at the end of the series it is mentioned that he is going to America to study abroad which implies that he's going after her and hasn't given up.

Kihara towards Yuusaku. She even tried to actively pursue him after Sumire turned him down, but by that point, Noto tries to hook up Taiga with Yuusaku. Although that doesn't work out because Taiga is beginning to have strong feelings for Ryuuji, and later it turns out Noto liked Kihara, so tried to keep her from hooking up with Yuusaku.

Painfully so. A lot of drama could have been avoided if Ryuuji had asked some very simple and basic questions during the Drama Bomb.

Or during the time with Taiga's father. Almost all of the awkwardness and silence between Ryuuji and Minori probably could have been averted if he just asked, "Wait, why do you hate Taiga's father so much? What has he done?" when Minori found out, instead of exploding at Minori that she didn't know anything. Because, y'know, Taiga's oldest friend might have an idea what's up. Of course, she didn't bother explaining things either, even though Ryuugi clearly didn't know the whole situation if he was so readily defending Taiga's father. Conversely, Ryuuji never knew his own father and wouldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to meet their father.

When Minorin enjoyed an indirect kiss with Takasu off her fist, after sending him out after Taiga.

When Yuusaku suddenly takes a bite of the crepe Taiga is eating, she gets flustered and impulsively shoves it into Ryuuji's mouth, saying "you have some too!" Afterwards, she complains that Ryuuji stole her indirect kiss with Yuusaku. She seems to have missed the point that, since she had already been eating it, she forced an indirect kiss with her on Ryuuji.

Ami. She is apparently so gorgeous that people stop in the street to stare at her (and she is even a model in-verse), but she looks no different from the other characters in the series. Most likely a side-effect of The Beautiful Elite and Generic Cuteness.

This is softened a little bit by the fact that she is taller and has noticeably longer legs than the other female characters, a common trait of models, and by the fact that Taiga used to have a similar effect on boys, at least until they learned to fear her.

For comparison, Taiga, Minori, and Ami have a short cameo in Ōkami-san. Taiga and Minori are pretty much depicted as in Toradora!, but Ami is notoriously taller, curvier and more adult-looking.

In-Series Nickname: Taiga is known as the "Palm-Top Tiger", due to her short stature and ferocity.

Interrupted Suicide: Invoked, and later played for laughs in episode 24. The reason Taiga reacts so dramatically at Ryuuji's self-deprecating statements is because she thinks that he's going to jump off the bridge they're standing on. Her reaction is... to push him off the bridge, which makes him fall pathetically into the shallow stream of water right under. She then starts making fun of him until he is about to pour his heart to her... to which she herself jumps on top of him just to interrupt him, as she wanted to be the first one to declare her love for him.

To the degree that the Love Dodecahedron keeps on going because half its contenders don't try to resolve it to their advantage out of fear of denying someone else their happiness. The real kicker is that, near the end of the story, both primary love interests are mostly aware of the other's intentions and feelings. Thus it turns into a weird bizarro Love Triangle where the contest is who can give Ryuuji to her opponent first. Minori "wins".

Ami, of all of the girls. After being unrequited by Ryuuji, Ami decided to just stay as friends with him as well supporting his feelings for Taiga. This is also the reason why she fought Minori in the ski trip for rejecting Ryuuji and breaking his heart after Christmas.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ami, after a bit of Character Development. Ryuuji is also one of these for the rest of the school once they learn that he's not as fearsome as he looks, although being the viewpoint character the viewers know this from the get-go.

Kawaiiko: Both Ami and Yasuko. With Ami it's a mask she's developed to get by in the modeling industry and is now afraid to take off because she doesn't think anyone will like her real self; with Yasuko it seems to be her real personality, but it may be a case of Becoming the Mask. Interestingly, with Yasuko, who is well above the age where it should be acceptable, it's endearing, while with Ami it's the thing that makes her Alpha Bitch.

Last Confession Wins: Averted. Minori deliberately withholds her confession until after Taiga's. However, the corollary holds in that Ami's the first to express her feelings towards Ryuuji.

Lost in Translation: NIS America's official English subtitles make some interesting translation choices:

The girls' nickname for Kitamura is Maruo, after the bespectacled student council president in Chibi Maruko-chan. The subtitles replace that with "Four-Eyes". The English dub uses Maruo, but because the nickname is never explained in the Japanese-language version of the show — Chibi Maruko-chan is a massively popular franchise in Japan so no explanation was necessary for Japanese viewers — there's no opportunity to explain it within the show for English-language viewers who are likely unfamiliar with it.

Taiga's Insult of Endearment for Ami, "baka-chi" (dumb chihuahua), appears in the subtitles as "Chi-Chi".

In Episode 20, the subtitles and dub suggest that Taiga is merely mispronouncing "biscuit"; in fact, she's mispronouncing "chinsuko" (a sweet biscuit sold in Okinawa) as "chinkosu" (penis), which is why Haruta is getting such a charge out of it (and why Taiga gets embarrassed and angry).

Love Confession: The whole story is built around characters trying to confess their love, but they're usually so tongue-tied that the other party doesn't realize what they're being told, or upon realizing it stop the other person from finishing. The more notable examples:

Taiga to Kitamura, though she's so flustered that he thinks she's confessing to loving Ryuuji.

A non-romantic version when Yasuko declares Taiga to be part of the family.

Taiga to Ryuuji, though she's half-conscious, suffering from hypothermia and believes she's talking to Kitamura about her love for Ryuuji.

Ryuuji to Taiga. He doesn't actually manage to say, "I love you," until the very last scene of the series, but he's made the message clear before that.

Love Dodecahedron: Ami likes Ryuuji, who is in love with Minori, who thinks that he likes Taiga (and likely has some feelings for Taiga herself), while Taiga really likes Yuusaku. It only gets worse as the series progresses.

Later in the series, we find out that Yuusaku once thought Taiga attractive, but now likes Sumire Kanou, who in turn apparently likes him back but can't because of high school graduation...

Overturned again towards the end, when is revealed that Taiga has fallen in love with Ryuuji. And her love is fully reciprocated by Ryuuji. Thankfully, that puts an end to the mess.

By the end of the series it's so all-pervasive that the revelation that Minori was in love with Ryuuji too had viewers wondering if her issues weren't something deeper than just anotherI Want My Beloved to Be Happy. To make matters more complex, Minori isn't sure whether she lost Ryuuji to Taiga or Taiga to Ryuuji.

Love Letter Lunacy: Taiga attempts to give Yuusaku a love note, but ends up just giving Ryuuji an empty envelope instead, which kicks off the plot.

Love Revelation Epiphany: A major plot point is that Taiga was confessed to by Kitamura and only started to develop feelings for him after that.

Lower-Deck Episode: The short story "The Palmtop Tiger of Happiness", included at the end of Book 3, is told from the perspective of a freshman who believes Ryuuji is a junior yakuza who's keeping Taiga as some kind of love slave. His attempts to rescue her backfire spectacularly. The anime adaptation abandons this almost entirely, reducing the freshman to a role no larger than Haruta and Noto.

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Manchild: Ryuuji's mother Yasuko refers to herself as "Yacchan", and makes childish requests like wanting her name written in ketchup on her omelettes.

Matchmaker Crush: Originally Ryuuji offered to help set up Taiga with Kitamura, with the understanding that later she would help set him up with Minori. Due to the amount of time they spend together however, it becomes pretty clear who they're going to really end up with.

Maybe Ever After: Between Yuusaku and Sumire, since she admitted that she returned his feelings before leaving, and he eventually follows her to the US after graduation.

Neat Freak: Ryuuji fits this trope to a T. If he sees anything unsanitary, dirty, or messed up clothing, he usually drops whatever he was doing in order to clean/fix it. Becomes a Running Gag later in the show, such as when they go to the girl's dorm during the ski trip, and the first thing he does is start sorting out socks strewn about the messy room.

Minori gets one from trying to suggest that they do a haunted house for the school culture festival.

Seems to happen a lot with Minori, though the above example is the only one caused by being turned on. "Nosebleeds are the tears of the heart!", indeed. And later played more seriously: "I did learn one thing today. When you trip in the hallway, you get a nosebleed. When you trip in life, you cry."

Ami. She puts on an innocent airhead persona, except to her true friends who knows how she's really like but accept her anyway.

In the summer vacation episodes, Minori gives hints to the viewer - a secret smile here, a cryptic comment there - that she knows precisely what's being planned, as well as knowing how Ryuuji feels about her. Her uniqueness means she can dismiss whatever she says as either more inane babbling or refine it into an honest statement.

And in the same episode, Kitamura's lame tricks are supposed to cover his true plan. Which leads to a hilarious exchange in the novels:

"In the cave, it was nothing but a string of failures. Didn't you think 'theres no way that Kitamura could be this unreliable' or something?" "Ah, not really, I just thought, 'so this guy really is an idiot?'"

Taiga apparently lives separate from her parents, who bought her an apartment all for herself just to get her off their backs. Later on her father asks for her to come back and one actually sees what kind of father figure he is.

It quickly becomes apparent he is not much of a parent at all.

Turns out that Ryuuji's missing father isn't dead- he's just a deadbeat. He didn't even stick around until Ryuuji was born.

Parlor Games: The cast is playing shiritori on the bus to the ski resort, at least until Minorin drags it way off track.

Portmanteau Couple Name: Right there in the title. To elaborate: "Taiga" is tiger, phonetically transcribed from English into Japanese, whereas Ryuuji is a name dealing with dragons (which would be ryu). These are flipped for the title, so we get "Tora" the actual word for tiger in Japanese, and "Dora" comes from "Doragon", which is the Japanese transcription of the English word dragon. * "Taiga" (big river) is phonetically tiger, is flipped to "Tora" in hiragana (which implies it's japanese meaning) and Ryuuji (son of the dragon) is flipped to "Dora" in katakana (implying it comes from "dragon" in English).

Yuusaku takes this further than he has to in Episode 17, when he thanks Taiga for her willingness to defend him from what she thought was Sumire's bullying.

And Minori does it too at the beginning of the series, believing Ryuuji and Taiga are an item and begging the former to bring hapiness to the latter. Done in a Shout-Out way to Hyûga's famous Pose of Supplication scene in Captain Tsubasa, right downto the pre-PoS badass stance.

Post-Victory Collapse: Minori finally breaks down after Ryuuji, Taiga, and Yuusaku leave Ami's house in the second-to-last episode.

Minori and Taiga's relationship has some elements of this, especially from Minori's side.

In Episode 24, Minori confesses to Ami that she doesn't know whether she's sad because she's lost Ryuuji to Taiga or Taiga to Ryuuji. Ami later comments that Minori, Genki Girl that she is, broke down after being dumped by both Ryuuji and Taiga.

As one can imagine, Minori and Ami start to develop this kind of relationship after said event.

School Swimsuit: Taiga, Minori and Ami go shopping for one, which sets off Taiga's A-Cup Angst. Subverted later by Ami, who wears a bikini for her race with Taiga, claiming her school swimsuit hadn't dried.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; Minorin is a veritable fount of bizarrely out of place refrences: "Sigh GET!" and a Yu-Gi-Oh version of her pudding bucket; "ORA ORA ORA" when choosing which pictures to buy; pretending she's Golgo 13; Nozumo Itoshiki's lectures being the inspiration for her multiple jobs; she has a Twitter Whale cup, etc.

She sings a lyric-altered version of the Princess Mononoke theme song at the beginning of episode 17.

Minori references Fist of the North Star a few times. At one point in volume 7 she delivers rapid-fire taps to Taiga's forehead while imitating Kenshiro's AH-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA battle cry, and then starts singing a lyric-altered version of "You wa Shock" (FOTNS' first opening theme) to Ryuuji afterwards. Her "Divine Fist of Convenience Stores" is also a parody of Kenshiro's Hokuto Shinken ("Divine Fist of the North Star") attack.

Kana and Touma from Minami-ke are shortly seen walking by in one scene.

On a snowy night, leaning on a bridge's rail, Ryuuji wonders if Yasuko's life wouldn't have been better if he hadn't been born. Angel Taiga has clearly seen It's a Wonderful Life and overreacts a bit.

In Episode 4, Taiga and Ryuuji go to Sudoh Bucks (Starbucks Coffee), located next door to the Furukawa Bakery. A couple who look a bit like Tomoya and Nagisa is also seen strolling in front of it.

Taiga once refers to Ami that her name is written exactly the same way as Sailor Mercury's.

The music playing during Taiga's learning to swim montage is an obvious knock off of the theme from Chariots of Fire.

Taiga's overenthusiastic "Oha!" greeting to Kitamura in Episode 4 is done in the style of "Shingo Mama", a character played by a cross-dressing Shingo Katori (member of the boy band SMAP), and demonstrated in the song "Shingo Mama no Oha Rock".

Shower of Awkward: Subverted, as when Ryuuji walks in on Ami in the shower, she's actually fully dressed. But then played straight when Taiga walks in on her a few minutes later.

Ami gets in a pretty good one, too, when she's stomping her stalker's camera to pieces. That the expression freaks him right the hell out is icing on the cake.

Taiga lacks nothing in this department, as Episode 3 shows.

Even their teacher gets one when they choose wrestling as theme of the festival. Looks like Toradora! is the non-action anime with the greatest number of slasher smiles.

Slow Clap: During the School Festival, Ryuuji starts this up with Minori's help after Taiga's Jerk Ass father ditches her during the beauty pageant. Played realistically in that nobody joins in until they realize that it's the delinquent Ryuuji clapping, and he looks ready to kill someone, so better go along.

Spit Take: Beautifully synchronized with Ryuuji and Taiga in the fifth anime episode: they both take sips of water to calm down after seeing Ami come into the restaurant, then spit it out together when Kitamura walks in and greets her.

Spoiler Opening: Ami Kawashima appears in the opening from the first episode on, even though she doesn't first appear until the fifth episode.

Super-Deformed: Toradora SOS!, four mini-episodes created as bonuses for the Japanese DVD releases, featuring the main characters as chibi-fied versions of themselves trying out various foods. Cuteness ensues.

Tempting Fate: When Minori and Ryuuji are in a dark storeroom, Minori comments that it'd be interesting if they were to suddenly get locked in there. Cue door being shut by the manager who thought she left the door unlocked.

"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ami gives a particularly harsh one to Minori during the ski trip. It seems to legitimately piss off Minori for the first time ever, and while it seems they let it slide, the next day Ami seems to keep getting hit by the sled ridden by Taiga and Minori. It's likely that this happened because Ami likes Ryuuji, but was told in an earlier episode by Taiga not to interfere with him while he tries to confess his love for Minori. But Minori continues to hide behind her Genki Girl facade, and act as if nothing happened. Considering all the mistakes and slip ups Minori was making in earlier episodes, Ami has reason to be angry, since she can't stand Minori not being true to her feelings, and at least giving Ryuuji a clear answer so in the event she rejects him, she could then legitimately move in on him.

That Came Out Wrong: Episode 14 "The Palmtop Tiger of Happiness", involves a rumor that touching Taiga will bring you good luck/happiness. She spends most of the episode trying to avoid contact with people until she runs across Kitamura looking down and tells him "You can touch me as much as you want. Touch me lots and lots!" followed immediately by the realization of what that sounds like.

Tiger Versus Dragon: Thrives off this. The title itself is a combination of Japanese for tiger (Tora) and the Japanese transliteration of the English word dragon (dora(-gon)). The main characters are even named Taiga (referenced in her nickname "Palmtop Tiger") and Ryuuji (dragon child/character). Ryuuji himself references the symbolism in an early episode.

Training Montage: Ryuuji teaches Taiga how to swim. Comes complete with a Chariots of Firesound-alike and a balancing exercise on a pole against a sunset!

Tranquil Fury: During their first meeting, Taiga calmly slaps Ami when she tires of her bitchy behavior.

Trauma-Induced Amnesia: The main plot of the visual novel Toradora! Portable. After Ryuuji went hospitalized after Christmas because of getting hypothermia after being rejected by Minori, he goes into a Convenient Coma awaking without memories and all depends of the player to recover his memories and follow the original ending or choose one of the other girls (yes, including Minori).

Unrequited Love Switcheroo: This series is rather fond of this trope. Taiga falls for Kitamura after rejecting his initial confession; too bad by this point he's moved on to pine after Sumire. Towards the end of the series, Minori finally admits that she returns Ryuuji's feelings for her - right after he's realized that he's moved on and is in love with Taiga instead.

Vitriolic Best Buds: Ami and Taiga. Ami and Minori appear to have this kind of relationship by the end of the series.

"Instead of drag, how about we have a 'BL Cafe'? The butler will be seme, while the slightly haughty waiter will be uke. Theyll be affectionate and mean to their customers simultaneously How's that? Kya! I've said it!"

In Episode 2 when Taiga throws a fit about how nobody understands her, Ryuuji joins in and kicks the light pole with her to show her that, yes, there was somebody willing to understand her.

In "The Palmtop Tiger of Happiness" episode, Ryuuji chides Ami for her diet, gives her an extra pork cutlet (since they come in a pack of four and he's only feeding three) and says she acts like a kid. This comes after a day in which Yuri and Minori have both praised her for her maturity and she's received a call from her agent begging her to return to modeling full time. The episode ends with Ami telling her mother she wants to remain in school. Towards the end of the series, she confesses to Ryuuji that she stayed because she'd finally found someone who understood her and liked her for who she really is, even if he doesn't love her.

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